This invention relates to mechanism for locking or retaining individual rounds of ammunition in storage tubes or equivalent support racks. A typical installation would involve ten vertical rows of support tubes, nine tubes per row, making a total of ninety tubes. Individual tubes are oriented to be prone or horizontal; the overall installation has a "honeycomb" or "pigeonhole" character. Individual support tubes have internal diameters to fit or accommodate specific ammunition rounds, such as a 155 mm round having a diameter slightly greater than six inch and a weight somewhat greater than one hundred pounds.
The ammunition storage system could be used in military depots or other fixed installations. However my invention was specifically designed for use with ammunition storage racks designed to be placed in track-propelled ammunition supply vehicles, such as the vehicle designated by the U.S. military as the M-992.
The M-992 will have the storage racks in a fixed location in the cargo compartment. Projectiles will be loaded into the racks, using ammunition handling equipment, at a Battalion Supply Facility. After the vehicle has been driven into the battle zone a chain conveyor is extended from the M-992 vehicle to a designated combat vehicle requiring a new supply of ammunition. A crewman in the M-992 vehicle transfers individual rounds from the loaded rack to the conveyor for transmission into the other vehicle.
My invention is concerned particularly with mechanism for locking or retaining individual rounds of ammunition in individual storage tubes of the rack structure. The mechanism includes gang type actuator means for simultaneously locking all rounds in a row of tubes (i.e., ten tubes in the example) or all rounds in the system (ninety tubes in the example), depending on how the rack system is manufactured.
While the ammunition supply vehicle is being driven from the supply point into the battle area the rounds in the storage tubes are locked or retained against inadvertant dislodgement from the tubes. The gang type actuator means is retractible to a standby position wherein individual locking mechanisms are in locked conditions but susceptible to being unlocked when deemed necessary, e.g., when it is necessary to transfer individual rounds into a conveyor system for transfer to a combat vehicle. Manual means is associated with each storage tube for releasing or unlocking the associated ammunition round.
The invention is directed to a ammunition retainer mechanism that features gang type locking action and individual round unlocking action. The general arragement is somewhat similar to the system shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,344,528 to Perisastry et al. However, I propose a gang locking feature that is not present in the Perisastry et al system. Also, there are some detailed differences in the lock structures and mechanical effort required to achieve an unlocking action.